Sunday, April 4, 2010

As final exams ended for the winter quarter, shouts could be head all over campus, "SPRING BREAK!!!!". Each person was glad to be done with classes and to have a nice 10 day break. While some people went back to their homes, some flew to mexico or drove to canada to get plastered. I loaded GnarCar up and had one thing on my mind. Kayaking. The water levels were low. I knew one place where even if it isnt raining.... the shit is running. The Little White Salmon. Probably one of the best rivers in the world, no definetly. I drove down to hood river with the goal of kayaking until my arms fell off. The first day we had a great run on the Little White. Here is a great shot of Orion Meredith styling spirit falls like its a damn fashion show. Photo Fred Norquist

The Little White Salmon will always have a place in my heart, it has some of the most quality rapids out there, and travels though a beautiful northwestern basalt gorge with tons of greenery. The water comes from an underground aquifer which gets filled in the winter by rianfall, then runs all througout the winter months and even into the spring and summer. The water is Crystal Clear with an incredible aqua-marine blue tint to it. The little white is an extremely special place.

After a great day, I drove to the Wind River Festival which was a great time with good brew, good food, and some good stories around a bonfire. I woke up, and met up with a motivated Seattle crew ready to charge.We put on the Little White around 9 having a good run, and my first run down spirit falls which was a success. Then we headed to the Truss to make it a double WHAMMY! By the end of the truss, my arms were sore and It ended up being a great day, I reached my goal of portageless Ldub and Truss. I said goodbye to my seattle friends and drove over the bridge to Hood River where I cooked some dank pasta in the parking lot at the kayak shed.Gypsy style!

So I spent the day hiking around taking pictures of the waterfalls in the area.

Multnomah is a stout. Probably runnable(that is possibly sarcastic).

The Lip view! Holy STOUT! you can see the bottom drop's lip around 500 feet below.

Good scenery in the Columbia River Gorge.

Pretty!!!

After a good day of hiking and photographing, I headed back into HR, met up with some friends and hopped the fence into our favorite hotel hot tub. It was purely for therapeutic reasons of course. We did this everyday for the rest of break, Gypsies!

The next 5 days I ran the Little White everyday. I made a sick Video edit from some headcam footage taken over those days on the LDUB.

Check it out, personally I would say its one of my better Video creations.

And here are some pretty pictures. Spirit falls is beautiful place. It is a place that instills fear in me. It is a waterfall unlike any other I have run, significantly more consequential with Chaos below, and a bad cave on the right not to mention a huge frothing boil, or the fact that many people have had back injuries on this drop. After running spirit once and having a decent line, I was out to style it perfectly.

Jay Gifford Contemplating Spirit Falls

I ran and didnt have the greatest line... boofing too big will really hurt on this drop. Im really glad I didnt end up injuring my back. Photo By Erik Boomer

Oh yea! haha ouch! Photo: Erik Boomer

That was my second line on Spirit, one decent line, one huge boof, and on my last run I finally had the perfect line that I wanted oh so bad. Its in the video. Check it out.

My sad face leaving LDUB. I will be back have no fear.

It was friday, I had run the Little White 6 times and the Truss once. I was sore, and school was to start on tuesday. I headed north. After sleeping at a good friends house in Gig Harbor, I woke early and met the BHAM crew at Robe for a lap. Hitting Robe at a lowish flow isnt quite the LDub, but when water comes into Robe canyon, its a damn good day. It was still a good day for sure.

The Bham Crew about to hit up good Ol' Robe Canyon.

We took Adam down for his first time, so we were taking things slow, which allowed for plenty of time for me to hop out and snap some shots.

Chris Tretwold of the Bham crew in T1. Photo Fred Norquist.

Looking downstream at T2 and into the depths of Robe Canyon. Photo Fred Norquist

T1 and 2 are some pretty fun warm-up rapids, but once you come to Last Sunshine, Its on. Definitely my favorite rapid of the run.

Leif Embertson About to launch a sweet line off one of the greatest boofs out there. photo:Fred Norquist

Oh yea! The kicker giving Leif a nice boof into the fast moving current coming from the right. photo:Fred Norquist

Here is a short video of one of my best lines on Last Sunshine, God I love this rapid.

One of my Favorite shots from the day, Jonathan, Chris, and Hale running Hole In the Wall. Photo: Fred Norquist

Looking up the Canyon with Faceplant in plain view.

Just after faceplant is Catcher's Mitt, a big hole and a good feeling drop to boof the piss out of. Here is Chris Killin it. Photo:Fred Norquist

Shortly after Catcher's Mitt is a manky pile of rocks created by a landslide that is normally portaged. Below the portage is garbage.

We wanted to attempt to cut a log out of Garbage that had been bugging us, and we want gone before the Robe race. Attempt we did or Chris did rather. However was unable to cut the log free due to surging water and sketchy sawing conditions. We concluded we would come back at lower flows.

Then we ran Garbage.

Leif dropping in. After Garbage, the rapids space out a bit, one of the best has to be 20ft waterfall.

Chris smear boof on the second drop in 20ft waterfall. This is a great one to Brown.

Jonathan, Chris and Adam coming into sight in Conversation.

Adam and Chris in Lower Conversation. Photo: Fred Norquist.

It turned out to be a great spring break. Im back in bellingham now, classes Just started. It looks like runoff will begin sometime soon, and be sure I will be out there paddling as much as I can.